Film, Animation and Digital Arts MA

Facilities

Our students have access to a wide range of professional film, audio, video, and digital production facilities, including:

• Computing facilities based around high-end GPUs
• Fibre connected film and television studios
• Motion / performance capture facilities
• 4k and 12K cine cameras and lenses
• Lighting, sound and grip equipment
• Photogrammetry
• Film and sound editing software
• State of the art production software
• Extensive fast media storage
• VR/AR/MR/XR head mounted displays.

Location and connections

Our Guildford location is not only a short train journey from central London, but is also a media production hub in its own right. Major film studios are nearby, and the town itself is home to a vibrant video games development community, alongside animation houses and design agencies. Notable players include:

• Supermassive
• MediaMolecule
• Electronic Arts
• Figment Productions
• BlueGFX
• Criterion

And many others.

We regularly enjoy visits and engagements with the London film production and VFX community, which includes:

• Framestore
• Moving Picture Company
• Blue Zoo
• Nexus
• Milk VFX
• KeyFrame Studios

And many more.

We also maintain close links with the British Film Institute, BAFTA, Animation UK, Visual Effects Society, SIGGRAPH London, UKIE and plenty of other important industry networks with whom you can connect.

On campus, we share a building and frequently collaborate with the prestigious Guildford School of Acting. We also work closely with colleagues from Surrey's engineering programmes and have found touch points in many other departments across the University. In addition to this, we are actively building relationships with other institutions both close at hand and around the world; our approach is one of open collaboration wherever possible across all sections of the arts, culture and technology communities.

Teaching

Intensive development of practical skills will be assessed through the development of a cumulative portfolio, presented as response to and output from a series of creative and technical skills workshops in Semester 1.

A group collaborative project rounds off this part of the programme, which involves multidisciplinary collaboration along with technical and creative experimentation.

Complementary theory lectures and seminars will be delivered by active practitioners and researchers from within the department and beyond, including those from our own postgraduate researchers.

Advanced skills development is offered to support your final project in areas which include:

• Writing and screenplay development
• Character creation
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Animation
• Directing performance
• 3D animation
• VFX
• Game engines
• AI assisted content creation.

The output consists of a portfolio of practice, applying the advanced techniques as prototype development for the final masters project.

We offer careers information, advice and guidance to all students whilst studying with us, which is extended to our alumni for three years after leaving the University. Our graduates have lifetime access to Surrey Pathfinder, our online portal for appointment and events bookings, jobs, placements and interactive development tools.

The programme will provide you with an accelerated career path into numerous areas of the film, television and interactive media sectors, equipping you with sought-after skills and experience in these exciting fields. On successful completion of the course, your creative aptitude will be matched by technical acuity in whichever areas you have chosen to specialise.

The programme also provides a valuable springboard for extended postgraduate research on our own PhD programme or indeed should you choose to pursue your research elsewhere.